Overview
As you become more familiar with processing work, and depending on a variety of factors, your work plan may need to be more or less formal. If it is a large project that has high research value and donor importance we may want to process to a higher level and it is more important that a work plan is filled out before work begins. If, on the other hand, it is an annual accrual with an inventory, it is easy to add to the existing description and a work plan is not necessary, though many of the steps outlined in this document may be quickly thought through before work takes place.
Use the work plan form as a place to record your notes. Use the first section for your survey notes. Use the second section to create your plan. This is the work you will do on the collection. After your plan is approved, you may move forward with working on the collection and adding description to ArchivesSpace. Work plans should be added to digital control files when work on an addition/collection is completed.
Work plan template:
workPlanTemplate.docx
Examples:
Completing just section 3 - future work. Used when don't have time or resources to process at the moment but want to note possible work for the future:
AC-0144 Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel records WBWTworkPlanDec2016.docx
Used for survey and noting future work needs
MC-0713 John King papers King_workPlanMay2016.docx
Edited form including record of work done with brief summaries of content before work began, work done, and future work:
AC-0292 Joint Center for Urban Studies, records of the Guayana [Guiana] Project ac292jointcenter2workplan.docx
Completely filled in work plan:
AC-0346 MIT, Department of Nuclear Engineering records. Original work plan - WORK-PLAN-AC346.docx Final work plan - WORK-PLAN-AC346-v2.docx
AC-0636 MIT, Office of Digital Learning AC636workPlan.docx
MC-0725 Howard Brenner papers - example of a large collection with multiple people working on it - WORK-PLAN-MC725-Brenner.docx
MC-0729 E. Cary Brown personal archives WORK-PLAN-MC725-Brenner.docx
Use as processing plan as a deliverable for internship:
MC-0522 Martin Diskin papers ProcessingPlan.docx